Alice Cooper on Playing Golf With Donald Trump: ‘Everyone Cheats’

Shock-rock veteran and avid golfer Alice Cooper admitted he cheats while playing the game in certain circumstances, and suggested that Donald Trump does too. The pair have played golf together in the past, but the subject of cheating has become higher profile since Trump’s election as U.S. President in 2016.

“[T]he funny thing is, everybody wants me to say he was cheating,” Cooper told Billboard in a new interview. “And I say, ‘I don’t know anybody that doesn't cheat at golf.’ When it’s for fun, I mean, I cheat, everybody cheats.” He toed a similar cautious line when asked a similar question in 2012, answering: “The worst celebrity golf cheat? I wish I could tell you that. It would be a shocker. I played golf with Donald Trump one time. That's all I'm going to say.”

Cooper also explained why he steered clear of politics during performances. “I’m the escape from politics,” he said. “My job is to take you somewhere in the same way Star Wars or Jurassic Park does. Because the rest of the day, you turn on the TV and it’s some new development with the Russians or North Korea. And I know that everybody wants to give their take on what Trump is doing and all that. But if Alice Cooper says anything about politics, it’s definitely in satire.”

He argued that he didn’t feel a conflict between his stage show and his Christian faith, saying: “Well, they don’t fight each other. As a Christian, if you study the Bible – and I do – I don’t find anything in there that says, ‘You can be a Christian but you can’t be a rock star.’ There’s nothing in my show that’s Satanic. There’s no nudity. There’s no bad language. There’s no drugs. The Alice Cooper show is like some kind of dark vaudeville.”